


Metal Gear Sitcom

by Songberd



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2058714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songberd/pseuds/Songberd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if there were no Metal Gears, no explosions, no clones, nothing? Welcome to the normal, average, everyday life of the Daudin family and their friends!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happy Father's Day

The apples of his eye. It had been three years since he’d seen them, save for the occasional blurry picture he got from his ex-wife, sent smudged and bent with scrawling addresses that were right, but unreadable. She did it on purpose and it made him furious. But he savored each and every shoddy photo Eva sent him, every crayon drawing, and block-lettered note complete with bulbous hearts. John was two days from retirement, but still three days from home, staring off into the dense forest as the sun began to set, the whirring of helicopter blades filling his ears.

“Excited to go home, Boss?” 

A voice from behind broke the monotony, and he glanced over his shoulder at the all-too-familiar blond man that had been his second set of eyes for as long as he bothered to remember. Big Boss glanced down at the photo he’d been holding: Lennox and David chucking snowballs at each other. If the date on the back was any indication, the picture had been taken just a few months ago. They looked so big. Growing into real men. He thought about how much of their lives he’d missed. Their birth, their first day of school, all the loose teeth he hadn’t been there to collect. The list was endless. At least they looked happy. Eva loved her children, and despite what she’d done, he found it impossible to believe that she’d ever let harm come to either of them. 

Kaz had come up behind him, looking at the photo in his hand that his eye had long since abandoned. “I’ll take that silence for a yes, then.” The second-in-command chuckled, but it sounded sad. He understood. “We’re finally getting out of this shit, Kaz.” He sighed, and slipped the photo back into a pocket in his uniform, pressing the velcro down with some finality. The next time he saw his boys, it wouldn’t be a photograph.

* * *

The ceremony had been uneventful. There was cheering and photographs, even a few high-status folks eager to shake his hands. But he left the bright lights and skilled words to Miller who did it with such ease. Big Boss never found himself all that surprised by what his friend was capable of, but always wondered why he picked such a tumultuous path. 

Eventually, the night drew to a close and he was more than eager to leave. He’d been waiting in the car in the dark when Kaz finally slid into the passenger seat. “Straight there?” He asked, closing the door behind him, leaving them both in the dark before Boss slid the key into the ignition, letting the engine turn over. “Mmhm.” 

It was a long drive. Eva had made a point of moving often, and he frequently had to resend letters with rewritten addresses. Everything she did at this point felt a bit like sabotage. She’d taken David and Lennox, sent him the worst pictures with the laziest handwriting she could muster. As if every effort she made was an attempt to create a rift. A crazy woman, yes, but she didn’t have obligations to her country like he had, and that had given her the upper hand. But he’d answered every letter and visited at every possible time, and now, away from the bloody fields of war, he prepared to wage another war. 

Kaz sat in the car as he made his way to the front door of her house. The sun was starting to rise, but he’d hoped they’d still be asleep.

“Johnny boy has come crawling back!” Eva greeted him before he even had a chance to knock, and immediately joined him outside, shutting the door behind her. He met her with no surprise, certain that she’d been reading the letters that he’d been sending their sons. “You’re not going to win, Eva.” He seethed at her, and she crossed her arms, looking straight into his face. A fatal dose of lust seemed to light up her tired blue eyes, and one corner of her mouth twisted down as they traveled over the neat leather covering. 

It had been years since they’d ended their relationship for good, on terms less than civil. Mild arguments escalating into screaming matches into things being thrown. They were both capable people, but John was more than aware of his own strength, and perhaps his unwillingness to actually strike back had been his downfall. She’d driven that damn knife right into his eye. He couldn’t even remember what they’d been fighting about, and doubted she could either. He was certain that she’d expected him to finally crack, but they’d both been caught off guard. And that had been the end of that. After he recovered, he didn’t press charges, not wanting the boys to be sent away. Eva may not have loved him anymore, but she loved them, and neither of them wanted to see David and Lennox thrown into a ruthless system.

“Oh, of course not. But you’re a fool if you think I won’t put up every fight.” He didn’t believe her. She suddenly sounded exhausted. Her nails dug into her skin and Eva pursed her lips, tearing her eyes away from him. “We both want what’s best for them.” He told her, trying to be understanding, to put himself into her shoes. Year after year of knowing that one day the only thing you had left would inevitably be torn from your grasp because you were “unsuitable” in comparison. It didn’t take much effort. A war-worn soldier addicted to his job. He’d suffered as much as she had. 

“They’re already packed.” She mumbled, gesturing towards the door with a slight cant of her head. “They’ve been waiting for you, John. I think they love you more.” The woman freed her arms and ran a tired hand through her hair. There was humor in her words, and she looked up at him again, trying to muster a smile, but when he didn’t return the favor, she gave up. “Don’t bother waking them up. I’ll be back in a few hours.” Sucking in her lips, she gave him a curt nod, and without another word, left him in the dark with naught but the sound of the engine rumbling behind him.

“You think she’ll still be here when you come back?” Kaz asked as John slid back into the car. He gripped the steering wheel hard, gritting his teeth. Did he? “She knows. And if there’s one thing I trust her with, it’s those boys.”

* * *

His head thumped against the headboard as he watched a patch of light slide its way up his bedroom wall. There was a dull throbbing in his brain, slightly off beat with his intentional rapping. Downstairs, he could hear Kaz doing something. He’d hear the occasional clang of a pot, running water, more clanging. When the man finally appeared, he had a bowl of cereal in his hands. John smirked. 

“Good thing this isn’t an apartment,” Kaz said, between mouthfuls of cereal. “The neighbors would wonder.” 

The thudding stopped, and the throbbing went on unaccompanied. His expression had disappeared, as well. Beyond the plastic blinds was a peaceful morning, birds chirping, probably not a cloud in the sky. He’d see them soon. But until then, he felt unsettled. 

“Cereal?” Kaz offered, clearly sensing the tension from his former boss and hoping to relieve it. He shrugged. There was a long silence. Kaz didn’t even bother to chew. “…Ya know,” He spoke up again, and John slowly closed his eye. “If it’s killing you so much, what’s an hour or two early gonna hurt for her?”  
John thought about what Eva had said earlier: “I think they love you more.” As much as he hated to think about her, he couldn’t help but feel…bad. John grit his teeth and banged his head against the wall again. “Forget I said anything.” He heard Kaz leave the room, a spoon tinkling against the edge of an empty bowl. 

He knew Kaz was right though. 

It took but a moment for him to get from his room to the garage. His roommate might’ve spoken up on his way out, but John hadn’t heard him. He got as much distance between him and his house as he possibly could before rolling down all the windows and cracking up the volume on the radio. He wasn’t even sure what he was listening to, whatever Kaz had last set it to, but he wasn’t really listening anyway. He gripped the steering wheel, probably overly hard, and whenever he checked the speedometer the car seemed to be going just a little bit faster. Too fast.

But it was that speed that had him pulling into her driveway in half the time. Unlike before, she wasn’t waiting for him, and he was given the chance to knock one, two, three times. Eva opened the door slowly and deliberately. With a finger pressed to her lips, she ushered him in and whispered, “I didn’t tell them you came over this morning. Maybe you could surprise them.” She gave him a sad sort of smile and went back into the other room where he could clearly hear the sound of cartoons. Shutting the door quietly at his back, he leaned against it and tried his best to keep a straight face. But it was hard. 

They hated each other, but they would go to the ends of the earth for those kids. What she was doing now, well, it was more than John had ever seen her give before. 

“I believe the mailman dropped something off for you two,” John heard Eva in the other room attempting to coax the twins into the foyer. “It’s a pretty big package though. You’ll have to open it in the foyer.” The TV clicked off and he could clearly hear shuffling in the other room. God only knew that they were probably climbing over the furniture to see what the “package” was. 

Despite all the pictures and all the letters, John hadn’t realized how grossly unprepared for this moment he was. Both appearing in the archway, there was a drawn out silence as both parties just kind of stared. They were tall. That was the first thing he found himself realizing. They were teenagers now, not the scrawny prepubescent ten year olds that he’d seen three years ago. Without realizing it, his hands had balled into fists, and he gave a quiet look to Eva who stood behind them, tears welling in her eyes. 

The silence was broken then as the boys charged him, beside themselves. He hugged them, hard, and though it felt foreign, it also felt right. And from her spot in the archway, John could hear Eva say, 

“Happy father’s day, John.”


	2. Manhood

“David, Lennox, get up!” 

The house was filled with the sound of activity while the two boys snored in their beds. Lennox, a blond boy of thirteen, had the bottom bunk, and David, his twin with brown hair, took the top. There were weekly fights over who slept where, and David had given his brother a nasty bruised arm the previous week. Their father had not been happy and both boys spent the weekend sleeping in the yard. At this point in their short lives, the twins had grown accustomed to these forced “camping trips”, sans s’mores and campfire tunes. But two days in a tent in the backyard was totally worth the top bunk to David, and Lennox had to suffer, as per usual. 

“I swear to god, boys…” 

Lennox rolled over onto his back and kicked the bottom of David’s bed. The boy stirred and they both listened, peering from beneath their blankets. There was the clank of utensils downstairs and voices, which faded, being replaced by footsteps. “We should probably move,” Lennox recommended, shoving his foot against the mattress again. David only groaned, and his brother saw an arm appear over the edge of the bunk. Both boys jumped when there was a loud banging on their bedroom door and then the hall light flooded their room. Their father cast a shadow across the height of the room before he switched their light on. “First day of school, boys. If I have to drag you out of bed, I will.” It seemed as though neither boy had remembered that, as of today, they were high school freshmen. And with high school came very early weekday mornings. 

“But daaad…” Lennox moaned as David slid awkwardly down the bunk bed ladder. The boy slapped a hand over his brother’s mouth, “Five minutes, sir.” He answered, shooting his blond brother a pleading look. Their father grunted, arms crossed and his eye shifted between the two of them. With no other word, he turned around and shut the door behind him. 

“Just get dressed, stupid. Dad will find a way to screw up today if we mess up.” With a yawn, David wandered to his closet, and Lennox literally rolled out of bed, lying face down on the floor for a moment. As his brother disappeared into his closet on the other side of the room, Lennox sneak-crawled over to his own, getting up in his own sweet time to get ready for the dreaded first day of school.

Their father tromped down the stairs, still in pajamas himself, but it wasn’t like he had anything else to do today. “They up?” A messy-haired Kaz peered around the door jam in the kitchen as John walked in. He grunted and swung open the refrigerator door, pulling out a carton of eggs and a jug of milk. “Like father, like sons, I guess,” Kaz shrugged, going back to whisking a blue-speckled pale mixture in a large metal bowl. “I’m sure they’ll come racing down the stairs as soon as they smell my paaancakes!” He yelled especially loud, then paused for a brief moment.

John had started cracking eggs into another bowl, splashing milk into it occasionally. “I gave them the whole spiel last night, and somehow…” He beat the eggs together, before pouring the mix into a skillet that had been heating on the stove. It sizzled satisfyingly. Above their heads, they could hear the beating of footsteps. John chuckled and moved the eggs around the pan. 

“Hey, kiddos,” Kaz greeted the boys cheerily as they bustled into the kitchen, immediately sitting at the table, staring expectantly at the two men preparing their breakfast. “You think this is for you? Kaz and I have been up for an hour, this is for us.” It seemed for a moment that the twins believed him, before he flipped some scrambled eggs onto their plates. Two pairs of eyes turned expectantly on Kaz then, who had his back turned to them, quietly flipping pancakes. Sensing the silence, he looked over his shoulder, shades slipping down his nose. “Uncle Kaz, we need to go soon…” Lennox chimed in through a mouthful of egg. 

“There is always time for pancakes,” Kaz interrupted, a glare passing over his shades as he pushed them back up his face. Shoving the spatula beneath a pancake in the pan, he flipped it over his shoulder. There was a silence as the pancake whizzed through the air and landed on Lennox’s plate. “Woaaaaaaaah.” Was the reaction from both kids, and Kaz slid the final pancake onto the pile by the stove, bringing it over to the table. “I better see every one of these pancakes gone, guys.” Kaz cracked a grin and sat down. The boys hastily dug in, making easy work of the little feast that their father and his friend had prepared. “Ready for today?” The single-eyed guardian asked. Though it would never show on his face or in his voice, he was proud of his sons. They’d been through a lot in their lives, whether they were aware of it or not, and in just a few more years the two would be out of his hair and off to college. 

Well, if they wanted to, he supposed. But they sure as hell weren’t going to keep living here.   
Lennox had a knack for languages and David was too good at science. It would be hard to imagine that some higher institution wouldn’t want to scoop the two kids up…Well, that was if they could actually maintain their other grades and keep out of trouble. They were constantly tearing each other up and there was the occasional casualty on the sidelines. John only prayed that this year they might try a little harder not to be the little shits that they usually were. “’Course we are, dad. I packed my backpack last night.” Lennox answered through a mouthful of pancake. David mumbled an agreement whilst up to his elbows in egg. 

Eying the clock on the oven, he pushed up from the table. “You all oughta get a move on then. The bus will be here soon.” Both boys looked to their father, mild confusion clouding their features. “You…You aren’t gonna drive us?” David asked, finally finished with the eggs on his plate (and everything else for that matter). Hardly a second later, the boy yelled, glaring at Lennox on the other side of the table. John scowled at the blond boy and Kaz just laughed from behind his coffee mug. “I figured you two were grown up enough to not need me to drive you,” He crossed his arms over his chest. “No, no! We’re fine. Come on, David, or we’re gonna miss the bus.” The twins wasted no time in dropping their plates in the sink and disappearing back upstairs to prepare for the day. 

“High hopes, boss?” Kaz asked, cradling his mug, eying the older man with a curious expression. John shrugged, “If I don’t get a call from the principal, it will be a god damn Christmas miracle.” 

Later, the annoying drone of a teacher at a chalkboard had David wanting to tear out his hair. Was this high school, really? It didn’t feel that much different from middle school, except now they were the shortest kids in class again. David had a different schedule than Lennox and had left the other boy not long after they’d gotten off of the bus. Their lockers weren’t even near each other. Dad would probably be happy to hear that. “Mr. Daudin, can you tell me what the answer to this equation is?” The boy was snapped from his stupor and glanced hastily up at the board, then down at his notes, or rather, his blank sheet of paper. 

“Uh…” He wound off some number that sounded like it ought to have been right. The teacher, a rather strong looking man with striking orange hair, scowled at him, “Huh, that’s right.” David couldn’t help but smile that he’d somehow gotten away with it. The rest of the period droned past with David lazily scribbling down notes to avoid being called on again. 

“You’re new, right?” As David shoved his stuff back into his backpack, another student had approached him. He stood up, hauling his backpack over his shoulder, “Yeah, David. I’m a freshman.” Making his way towards the door, the other boy followed him into the hallway. “I’m Ricardo. You can call me Chico, though.” Chico followed behind him, casting the faintest of shadows over David. “We ride the same bus,” David answered, looking over at the nearly identical boy with a smile. “Do you have chemistry next?” Chico nodded a few times, not happily. 

“Chemistry, more like chemis-try harder, right?” David asked, laughing. Chico could only make a strained face.

Somewhere on the other side of the campus, Lennox had his nose buried in a French textbook. “J’ai aime la cereale,” He answered, the question something to do with a breakfast he hadn’t eaten. Although he paid ample more attention than his brother did in his classes, Lennox found himself yawning frequently, hand covering his mouth in an attempt to keep from being rude. His eyes wandered occasionally to a girl sitting on the other side of the classroom. Well, two girls. 

One, a redhead, seemed enthralled in the class. Her chin on her hand, she gave the teacher her complete attention. The other, blonde, looked bored, although amused enough by the girl next to her. The redhead, Meryl, he knew well. They went to middle and elementary school together. When she and Hal came over, they actually got to make s’mores when they slept in the tent in the backyard. Real camping. Well, not that their dad would have called it that. He didn’t recognize the bored girl. She was probably older. The teacher called on her: “Pacifica, can you tell us what you did this morning?” 

Lennox didn’t recall what she said, instantly getting to his feet the second the bell rang a mere second after she read off her journal entry. “Meryl!” He flagged down the girl across the room. A wide smile spread across her face and after grabbing her things, she moved to meet him at the door as they both made way for a cluster of students. “First day,” The girl chirped, nudging the boy with an elbow. He laughed as they walked into the hallway, chattering excitedly as they exchanged schedules. There had been acute planning the last few weeks of last year, but they just needed to make sure.

“So, who was that sitting next to you in class?” Lennox asked, handing Meryl back her calendar. 

“Oh, Pacifica? Yeah, she and her brother, Ricardo, just enrolled here, I guess.” She shrugged, shifting the straps of her backpack on her shoulders. “We didn’t talk a lot. But she was nice.” Looking up at a clock as they passed it in the hall, she prodded a square on his schedule, “Come on, Len, we’re gonna be late.” There was a serious edge in her voice as she grabbed his hand and dragged the boy down the hall way.

As students filed onto the buses, one-by-one, the brothers eventually reunited. David, still tailed by Chico (who was sitting next to him), twisted around in his seat as Lennox grabbed a seat behind him, Meryl throwing her things by her feet as she slid in beside him. “Today was awesome!” David slammed his fist down on the top of the picked-at vinyl seat, grinning from ear to ear. “Good classes, David?” Meryl asked, looking between the two brown-haired boys. Before he could dive into an endless monologue about all of his educational endeavors of the day, Pacifica rose onto the bus.

“Paz!” Chico spoke up finally, ushering the girl into join them. She slid into a lone seat across from Meryl and Lennox, brushing her blonde hair behind her ear. The warm summer light coming in through the small bus window seemed to settle on her just so, Lennox found it hard not to stare. David gave his brother’s shoulder a hard shove, and they all laughed for a moment, Paz watching on in mild confusion. She was older, that much was clear, if only from the way she kept her distance from them. “This is my sister, Paz,” Chico introduced her. “Oh, so you’re Chico!” Meryl exclaimed, “I’m Meryl. I have French with your sister. And this is Lennox.” 

The four kids chattered all along the route, Paz occasionally chiming in with upperclassman wisdom while the freshmen listened as though her words were made of gold. She always seemed to be staring at her brother though, whenever she gave them advice, and the boy would just nod aggressively, eating up her words more severely than the others, even though he had, undoubtedly, heard them before. 

“We should hang out this weekend!” Chico offered, pausing in his excitement for only a moment to look over at Paz, who shrugged. He smiled, nodding his head as he appraised his three new friends. The bus hummed to a halt, and Lennox, David, and Meryl got to their feet. “We should,” Lennox replied. “We live right down the road. But David and I need to ask our dad first.” 

“We don’t live far either. Maybe we could just meet at the park.” Paz spoke up, angled in her seat to tell them all, even as they began to shuffle off the bus. “Sure!” Meryl threw up a hand as she skipped down the stairs, following behind David.

“I bet your dad’ll be happy to hear you guys didn’t get in trouble today,” The redhead laughed, prodding the blond boy again. He tried to swat her hand away, frowning somewhat. “David and I are turning over a new leaf,” The trio paused as Lennox looked over at his brother. David shrugged, and Lennox punched him in the shoulder, running off almost instantly afterwards, “Not at school, doesn’t count!” He yelled as he flew down the sidewalk.

“Hey guys!” A younger voice chirped up from across the street. Meryl and David, left alone, grinned as they crossed the street, greeting the kid. “Hal!” David pumped fists with the bespectacled boy. “You guys went back to school today?” Hal seemed in awe of the pair. “Yeah. When does your dad start teaching you again?” 

Hal just shrugged and frowned. “He’s been really busy lately. Mom says she’ll probably get me started next week.” Meryl kicked the sidewalk, “An extra week of sleeping in. You shouldn’t look so disappointed.” 

“We met these two new kids and they invited us to hang out this weekend. You should come too, Hal.” David moved on, noting Hal’s obvious discomfort at the prospect of “sleeping in”. It was not something that he did often, if David got any idea from the sleepovers that they’d had when he was younger. Mr. Emmerich was always doing something noisy in the basement. “Sure,” Hal smiled again, nodding a little shyly, before he turned around. David looked up to see the front door of his house open, and his father wheeled part way out the door, waving at Meryl and him, before calling out for Hal. “You can talk to your friends later, come on!” Mr. Emmerich was always nice, even when the kids considered him a little bossy. It was some balancing act that Hal’s father maintained. 

Hal backpedaled a little, stepping backwards towards his dad, “I’ll see you guys later.” He gave a little wave before running back into his house. 

“Come on, Meryl, before Lennox tells my dad that I punched him first.”

When they walked through the front door, David and Meryl were greeted by a very enthusiastic Keqluneq. “’ey! Leave ‘em alone. Get down, come on, outside.” Kaz barked an order at the husky, who immediately absconded, disappearing into the kitchen. Kaz waved a greeting to the kids before following after the dog. Meryl wiped some slobber off of her cheek and laughed,

“I won’t have to take a bath tonight, at least.” David giggled, and threw his bookbag onto the floor, flinging himself onto the couch in the middle of the living room. The redhead followed suit. “My grandma is probably wondering where I am,” She said as she sat next to David, looking over her shoulder for a moment, on the off-chance Lennox suddenly appeared. She knew enough of the brothers to know that he might be hiding behind the couch, just waiting to strike. 

“Wanna borrow the phone?” 

The kids spun around, surprised to hear a voice coming from the door to the basement. A tall blond man stood in the doorway, he was covered in a rainbow of paint. “Oh, uh…Sure.” Meryl answered him, and David broke into a fit of laughter. Adam aimed a thumb towards the kitchen, “Go ahead.” Eyes trained on him quietly, Meryl slid off the couch and disappeared into the kitchen to use the phone.

“Something wrong with her?” Adam raised an eyebrow, scratching at his upper lip, paint flaking off onto the carpet. “Meryl doesn’t like PE. She’s afraid that you’re gonna talk to our teacher.” Adam looked a little surprised, then scowled, “Like my mother would even consider my opinion of the girl if I had one. I don’t dabble in the affairs of children, David.” Crossing his arms, he leaned against the doorjamb. The boy made a face like he was trying not to laugh, and Adam only continued to scowl at him. “Children,” The paint-spattered man scoffed and disappeared back downstairs.

A moment later, Kaz reappeared, Keqluneq no longer at his heels, but rather Zeke, a pudgy black cat. “They can’t get enough of me today, Dave.” Kaz fell back on the couch beside him, the feline right behind him, leaping up into his lap, and began to knead his stomach. With a fluid shove, Zeke was sprawled on the floor, and laid there, staring at the ceiling. “I went to the pet store, because Keq was low on food, and well, you buy a few catnip mice and suddenly you’re a pu—“ His eyebrows pulled together as he halted, mid-sentence, suddenly realizing who his audience was. 

David looked confused and Kaz immediately reined in a few topic as though nothing had happened. “So, how does it feel being one step closer to manhood?” 

“I don’t really feel like a man,” The boy admitted, absently nudging his foot against Zeke’s stomach. The cat seemed distracted by a few paint flecks that had accumulated by the basement door, but was still too lazy to do much about them. Kaz shrugged, throwing his arms over the back of the couch, “Give it time…” Meryl reappeared then and looked slightly forlorn. “My grandma wants me to come home,” She told David as she came back over to collect her bookbag. “Okay. See you tomorrow, then.” David frowned as he walked Meryl to the door. 

Lennox came tromping down the stairs a few minutes later, dressed already in his pajamas. David had sprawled out on the floor and was working on his homework, while Kaz had passed out on the couch. The cat had reclaimed his place on the man’s lap, though seemed to have learned his lesson from last time and was simply curled picturesquely in a round little ball.

The studious boy looked over at his brother as he sat carefully down on the couch, being careful not to wake him. “Where’d Meryl go?” He asked, excitement clipping his words. “Her grandma told her to go back home.” David looked back to his homework, scribbling numbers down on a piece of lined paper. Lennox’s face immediately dropped, “Really?” He sputtered and slumped back. Silence stretched between them for a few long minutes: Lennox staring up at the ceiling, David working on his homework. Occasionally, Keqluneq barked somewhere outside, and there was a muffled thud below their feet. 

“Where’s Dad?” David asked finally, not bothering to look up from his work. “Asleep- upstairs. I already tried to wake up him.” The brown-haired boy didn’t bother asking anymore. To those in and close to the family, it was well-known not to bother John Daudin while he slept. 

“Come on, David, let’s do something. There’s time for homework later.” He flicked a bit of string at his brother, who brushed it off of his paper without a second thought. “We promised Dad we wouldn’t mess up this year,” David answered and frowned at his paper. He would have killed to abandon these stupid practice problems, but in the few minutes he’d been working, had mulled intensely over “manhood”, and decided that being responsible was the way to go about it. “So you’re gonna be boring this year? Come on, don’t turn into Dad.” Lennox half-teased. He slid onto the floor, looking over his sibling’s shoulder to see what he was working on.

David shoved him gently, annoyed by the shadow that he cast across the paper, “Dad’s not boring.” Lennox made a noise of indecision and, fiddling with the buttons of his pajamas in an oddly frantic manner, finally made a decision, “Let’s go and see those kids we met on the bus!” David slammed his pencil on the rug and slammed his face into his homework. “Are you gonna walk all the way over there in your pjs?” He muttered into the paper. But there was no answer. “Lennox?” Sitting up, he looked about. “Whe--?” 

“BOYS.” Like a vengeful god from above, their father’s booming voice seemed to shake the walls. Even Keqluneq stopped barking outside. Kaz shot up from his resting place on the couch, “Oh fuck, who did it?” His hands slid beneath his sunglasses and he rubbed his eyes. David wanted to sink into the floor. His brother had disappeared, leaving David to take the brunt of their father’s fury…and he wasn’t even sure what he was about to take the blame for. Angry footsteps from above became gradually louder as their father stomped down the stairs, finally stopping by the far end of the couch, away from Kaz and David. Zeke fled, able to bear the yelling, but the suddenly angry presence of his owner was far too much. 

If not for the nearly visible flames emanating from behind his angry parent, David might have laughed. Lennox had not been lying when he said that he’d tried to wake their father. But it seemed that John had been so asleep that he’d been totally oblivious to his son scribbling on his face. Black sharpie’d flower petals bloomed from around his eye patch, along with an extravagant curly mustache which looked a little funny mingled with the somewhat grungy beard that he kept now. “Are you going to explain this to me?” 

David clenched his jaw and looked down at the floor again. “David.” His voice was quiet now. It was scarier than when he yelled. “I-it was Lennox!” Nope, he was not up for taking the blame today. “And where is he?” David shrugged, his shoulders touching his ears and he kept them there. 

“Hey, Boss, you gotta little something.”

“Kaz, shut up.” 

Kaz sputtered from the couch. He was allowed to laugh. Without another word, John stomped out of the room, on the warpath, looking for his other son. After a long moment, the basement door squeaked slowly open with Adam peeking his head out. “Might just wanna stay out of his way, yeah?” With a slow nod, Adam took Kaz’s advice and disappeared again. 

“All Lennox?” Kaz ventured, relaxing back again. David scribbled a few numbers down on the paper, not even sure if they were right. “All him,” he answered, a deep set frown on his face. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could he? “He’s a trouble-maker all right. He really should know better though.” He adjusted his sunglasses on his nose. David didn’t answer and pretended to do his homework. Lennox really should have though. Dad hardly slept as it was, and as funny as the initial shock of it all was, the aftermath just wasn’t. 

“Aw, dad, come on!” The back door slammed and the first thing that could be heard was Lennox whining. “Get upstairs,” John harrumphed and Lennox didn’t say another word as he slinked up the stairs. Marker still on his face, he sat on the opposite end of the couch and began to idly rub at the marks with his thumb, glancing occasionally at the pad of it to see if it was coming off. No one spoke again until a bedroom door upstairs slammed. “Good first day?” He asked, looking down at David, who had since mentally given up on his homework, even though he continued to write down arbitrary numbers. “We, uh…Made some friends on the bus.” 

“Hm, that’s good. Good to be social. Make friends, stay outta gangs.” Apparently his rampage hadn’t totally woken him up. “Yeah, dad.” David answered. Kaz placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “Let’s get you downstairs. Maybe Adam has something that’ll get that stuff off.” John grunted, but followed nonetheless, leaving David alone in the living room. With a quiet sigh, he focused on his work again until Zeke returned and decided to nap right on top of the worksheet.


End file.
